Upgrading from 0.18.1 to 0.19 on Fedora 4 from ATrpms

Warning: This guide assumes that you're running Fedora Core 4 along with a PVR-350 using S-Video out. It also assumes that you followed Jarod Wilson's MythTV Setup guide found here. It should work on other Fedora setups with a PVR 150/250/350 but I offer no guarantees. Finally, I must admit that I'm not the most advanced Linux user out there. This guide was made from memory so it may not be completely correct.

Most people should be able to upgrade only MythTV. However, instructions for upgrading the kernel and drivers are also included for those who wish to go that path.

Create a backup of your database

Note there is no space between the -p option and your password. For example, if your mysql username was mythtv and your password media the command would be:

mysqldump -u mythtv -pmedia mythconverg -c > mythtv_backup18.sql

This will save a backup of the database to your current directory.

If you're anal-retentive about your passwords, you may also exclude the <password here> text and enter the password at the command prompt. I.E:

mysqldump -u mythtv -p mythconverg -c > mythtv_backup18.sql

You will then be prompted to enter the password for mythconverg.

Stop the backend

Stop the backend and any frontends.

# /sbin/service mythbackend stop

Upgrade MythTV

With yum, upgrading to the latest version of MythTV is simple:

# yum install mythtv-suite

That's it. Yum should go through and upgrade MythTV for you, installing any new dependencies or upgrading them as necessary.

At this point you can restart the backend service:

# /sbin/service mythbackend start

Now run mythtv to update your database to the latest version:

$ mythtv-setup

Go through all the settings and make sure they're set properly. In particular, make sure your recording directory is setup properly. 0.19 gets rid of having separate directories for live TV and recorded programs. Finally, run mythfilldatabase to make sure your listings are all updated.

$ mythfilldatabase

Final Touches

At this point MythTV should be pretty much upgraded. Check your httpd.conf has been updated to AllowOverRide see the MythWeb_readme for more details. Start up the frontend and check all your settings. Go into a recorded program and see if the OSD needs any adjustments. Also check your auto-expire settings on recordings with the LiveTV storage change.

Upgrading MythTV, kernel, and drivers

Upgrading MythTV won't fix problems caused by the kernel or drivers. To fix those bugs you'll need to upgrade the kernel and drivers.

Create a backup of your database

Note there is no space between the -p option and your password. For example, if your mysql username was mythtv and your password media the command would be:

mysqldump -u mythtv -pmedia mythconverg -c > mythtv_backup18.sql

This will save a backup of the database to your current directory.

Stop the backend

Stop the backend and any frontends. You'll also want to stop lircd.

# /sbin/service mythbackend stop
# /sbin/service lircd stop

It's also probably a good idea to disable the backend from starting during reboots while upgrading.

# /sbin/chkconfig mythbackend off
# /sbin/chkconfig lircd off

Install smart

Yum has a bug [1] that won't let you install/upgrade all the dependencies for ivtv so we'll have to install smart. We'll also download the appropriate files to setup the ATrpms and fedora repos on it.

# yum install smart smart-gui
# yum install atrpms-package-config

On when questioned on putting in the ATrpms and fedora repo channels into smart, say yes to all the stable and release ones. I believe the testing ones are disabled by default if you say yes to them but I think it's best not to add them anyway.

Next we want to update smart's cache and upgrade everything.

# smart update
# smart upgrade

I'm not exactly sure, but I don't think smart upgrades the kernel modules for everything so you'll have to reboot and install those as well. So at this point, reboot.

Note: If you're using a PVR-350's S-Video out at this point, your system may not reboot and load the ivtv driver. So you'll likely have to open an SSH connection (enabled by default in Fedora) or VNC connection (if you have that setup) to run these commands.

After the system has rebooted, we're going to update the kernel modules. If you used Jarod Wilson's Fedora guide [2] to initially setup MythTV you should have a $KVER variable that'll return your currently running kernel version. If you don't have one setup, run the following commands to do so:

# echo "export KVER=\`uname -r\`" >> /etc/profile.d/kver.sh

Note: The foregoing script does not always seem to work properly. Check that kver.sh has the correct value by running "# uname -r". RGN

Now we can upgrade our kernel modules using yum:

# yum install {ivtv,lirc}-kmdl-$KVER

If you're using alsa and/or an nvidia card, you'll want to upgrade those modules as well:

# yum install {alsa,ivtv,lirc,nvidia-graphics8756}-kmdl-$KVER

Reload drivers

Before we reload the drivers we'll have to make a change to our modprobe.conf. The latest versions of the kernel includes an ivtv module with it, making an alias line unnecessary. So remove or comment out this line from your /etc/modprobe.conf:

alias msp3400 msp3400-ivtv

Note: Removing this line is very important or you will not have sound after the upgrade.

At this point, we're ready to reload our drivers. The easiest way to do this (especially if you're running on the PVR-350's S-Video out) is to reboot. The new drivers will be loaded when the system is finished restarting.

However, if you want you can unload and reload the drivers in the command prompt:

Go through all the settings and make sure they're set properly. In particular, make sure your recording directory is setup properly. 0.19 gets rid of having separate directories for live TV and recorded programs. Finally, run mythfilldatabase to make sure your listings are all updated.

$ mythfilldatabase

Also check your httpd.conf has been updated to AllowOverRide see the MythWeb_readme for more details.

Final touches

At this point MythTV should be pretty much upgraded. Start up the frontend and check all your settings. Go into a recorded program and see if the OSD needs any adjustments. Also check your auto-expire settings on recordings with the LiveTV storage change. Finally, if you don't have sound, check the frontend settings and use a program like alsamixer to be sure your master volume and other volumes are set properly (updating the driver likely reset them).